In Love and War: Finding the father I neglected to know
In Love and War is the gripping account of one man's war. Aged nineteen he was wounded on the beaches of Dunkirk, captured in North Africa, escaped from his PoW camp, walked 500 miles to rejoin his regiment and fought in Italy until the end of the war. Then, while spending two years in Palestine as the fate of that contested area was fought over, he met his wife-to-be for a brief few days and then pursued their passionate romance through copious love letters.
That man was my father and he told me virtually nothing about his war and I neglected to ask. This book is a belated attempt to reconstruct his story. There are some facts, some archive, a few second-hand recollections all mixed up with a great deal of imagination. Perhaps it will help me to understand the father I never really got to know.
"The overall project, to engage with his father by every means possible, is noble, and an act of filial devotion that gives meaning and spiritual significance to all the detail. I admired the writerly technique, particularly the triple interweaving of dramatic scenes in which Bethell places himself as an unseen onlooker, factual stuff gained from research and official records, and then those love letters - what a treasure trove All held together by his touching letters to his father. This variation of texture makes the book wonderfully readable."
Paul Ashton Author: A Practical Guide to Bee Culture by Sherlock Holmes and A Puritan at Les Beaux
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